Why Slowbro Kept Its Move While Every Other Pokémon Lost One

The Pound That Wasn’t Meant to Be

On September 9, Creatures Inc. and The Pokémon Company pushed a new update to Pokémon Champions, a free-to-play tactical battler with over 50 million registered players across Switch, iOS, and Android. The patch introduced Regulation M-C, a roster expansion that finally brought Z-Mega Evolutions like Mega Absol Z and Mega Gyarados Z into ranked play. It also added Gorilla Marowak, Seismitoad, and several items including Rocky Helmet and Air Balloon.

But buried in the balance notes was a detail that set off confusion across Japanese and English-speaking communities: Slowbro had lost the move Pound.

Not that Pound is a standout. It is a Normal-type move with 40 base power, no secondary effect, and no special interaction with any ability or weather condition. In the broader Pokémon meta, it ranks below 10th in usage among all eligible movesets for Slowbro in Champions. It was never a staple. It was never going to be.

What made it notable was that Slowbro was the only Pokémon in Champions that could still learn it. The rest of the roster had already been stripped of Pound through prior simplification patches. The game had been systematically removing underused moves—Tackle, Tail Whip, Cut—to streamline its competitive environment. Slowbro’s Pound had survived simply because no one had gotten around to removing it yet.

A Patch Note That Answered Nothing

The M-C update did not simply remove Pound from Slowbro. It also added roughly two dozen new Pokémon and several Mega Evolutions that could never learn Pound anyway, regardless of prior availability. In other words, the expansion that created the most roster complexity in Champions’ history simultaneously removed the last remaining instance of a generic, low-impact Normal-type move from a single support Pokémon.

The logic is difficult to trace. If the goal was simplification, the timing was odd—adding dozens of new movesets, abilities, and Z-Mega variants to the same patch. If the goal was balance, Pound was not tipping any meta. Slowbro already relied on its Defense Curl and Amnesia stacking strategy; Pound was not part of that build in any meaningful way.

Some players on X and Reddit pointed to a niche doubles combo: using Pound to trigger Slowbro’s Oblivian ability while a partner set rain, theoretically enabling Bronzor to survive with Light Metal and counterattack. But Bronzor itself had its Mirror Coat and Metal Burst removed in this same update. The combo, however fringe, was already defunct.

What This Reveals About Balance in a Living Game

The real story here is not that Pound was removed. It is that the decision was not accompanied by any explanation, and the surrounding context made the change look arbitrary.

Pokémon Champions is not a traditional turn-based RPG. It is a fast-paced, ranked tactical battler where every move slot matters and every patch adjustment ripples through the competitive ladder. When Creatures or Game Freak changes a move, players notice because their ranked teams are affected overnight. And when the change lacks justification—especially one as oddly specific as deleting the sole remaining instance of a mediocre move—the community reacts with suspicion.

This is a pattern in live-service Pokémon games. Past adjustments to Sword and Shield’s Crown Tundra content, for example, removed moves without clear rationale, leading to months of speculation. The Pokémon Company tends to release balance notes in Japanese first, with English translations arriving days later and often omitting nuance. Players are left reading patch summaries and reverse-engineering intent.

The result is a credibility gap. When players cannot trust that balance decisions are consistent, they start looking for patterns—and sometimes conspiracy. The Slowbro Pound removal has already spawned memes and speculation threads on both sides of the Pacific. Some players joke that Slowbro was “promoted” out of the meta. Others genuinely worry that the next patch will target more obscure moves without warning.

Who Wins, Who Loses

The winners are the players who already had optimized Slowbro variants locked in before the patch. They now face a slightly less diverse pool of opponents running niche doubles strategies.

The losers are the players who built around Slowbro’s versatility, however marginal. They lost a move with no refund, no notification, and no apology. And they lost it alongside 20 other Pokémon that were added in the same update but never faced the same scrutiny.

The broader loser is the game’s own credibility. Every opaque balance change erodes player trust. Pokémon Champions has a massive global audience and the weight of the franchise behind it. Its players deserve patch notes that explain not just what changed, but why. Until then, every removal will be questioned—even Pound.

What Comes Next

Regulation M-C is now live. The ranked ladder is adjusting. Players are already testing the new Z-Mega variants and reporting back on X and Discord. The community’s patience with opaque balance decisions will likely grow thinner with each patch cycle.

If the developers plan to continue this level of roster expansion, transparent communication about move removals becomes essential. A single line explaining why Slowbro lost Pound—whether for balance, simplification, or oversight—would go a long way. The alternative is a growing chorus of players who feel like they are playing a game whose rules are decided in private.

Pound may be gone from Slowbro. But the question it leaves behind is far bigger than a 40-power Normal-type move.